Truth is nothing yet
by skeleton-leaf
Summary: They met, they felt as though they'd met before but truth is so subjective. The sequel to For You I Open My Eyes.


_**AN: **I know I said I'd do this earlier but things have been really hectic and I'm in Singapore at the moment doing work experience. Yet here it is, the sequel to For You. Any thanks must go to mz.sammiz whose review today amde me want to start again._

_Thank you to everyone who reviewed my last story - I love you!_

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, we've already established that.**

* * *

_Tristan looked up into the most amazing blue eyes he'd ever seen and for a moment, his heart stopped beating. But now, they weren't the most brilliant…in his mind's eye he could that other pair…identical but shining for him, only for him. Where is that memory from?_

He stared into her eyes…her light, brilliant, blue eyes that seemed to big for her pretty face, waiting for her answer. She reached for his hand and placed it over her heart.

"Do you feel that?" She whispered, her huge eyes focused on him.

He nodded, his eyes down now, unable to meet hers. She didn't say anything else. His mouth was set in a grim line but his eyes softened a little as she let go of his hand and turn the ignition key.

_The dreams…they were like dreams these memories. Were they memories? Had it been a dream? From long ago? Is that why sometimes he woke up in a cold sweat thinking Liz was dead, lying somewhere in the woods, bruised and broken? Is that why sometimes he woke up wracked with undeserved guilt and an awful, gut-wrenching loneliness? Why sometimes he daydreamed of a quiet cemetery he'd never been to? How was he remembering this now…when it slipped away like tendrils of smoke as he awoke._

_Suddenly he realised that he had been staring at this girl for an age. She laughed nervously and held out her hand to shake._

_"Lorelai…" Tristan breathed, still partly in his daze._

_The beautiful brunette with the choppy, shoulder-length hair gasped._

_"What did you say?"  
"Lorelai…" Tristan repeated softly._

_Louise and Jay raised their eyebrows._

_"Do I know you?" Rory asked, confused by how in hell this gorgeous guy knew her name._

_Louise had assured her she'd like him._

_"He used to be a real ass, but he turned himself around in final year, started working hard, got into a good college. He's one of those book-worm, study, study, study people…you'll love him!" Louise said, after convincing Jay to introduce the two some day._

_Tristan stared into her eyes and suddenly shook his head._

_"Uh…no…" He grasped her hand, hoping his wasn't sweating. "…it's just…I guessed Rory would be short for Lorelai…"_

_She smiled brightly._

_"You're right…it's just nobody ever calls me that. Tristan? Right?"_

_He grinned and nodded as Jay and Louise slowly faded away and it was just the two of them._

_"I told you they'd get along," Louise whispered and Jay rolled his eyes._

_Tristan couldn't get the stupid grin off his face…being with this girl…with Rory was like being with someone he'd known, someone he'd known well…someone he'd missed while she'd been gone. The feeling, the dream-like memories kept flooding._

_They stood together, outside on the verandah, Rory was leaving, she had an early class in the morning. He half-turned to her in the moonlight, only to catch her watching him. She blushed,_

_"It's strange…" She began, "…this feeling I have…that I know you from somewhere. You know we could have known each other? Jay said you went to Chilton, with Lou…we were going to go to Chilton…" She was babbling, nervous at being caught out watching him. He smiled, he still felt dazed._

I miss you

Why hadn't he ever been able to tell her, to just tell her how he was beginning to feel. Was it because he didn't have to understand it? Perhaps she could have understood it.

_"I miss you," He whispered, almost low enough not to be heard._

_"What?"_

_He shook his head, but suddenly something came over him, he became bolder. That was the thing about him, Tristan had never been shy with girls…until it came to feelings. But somehow he thought that this girl…that he could talk to her._

_"I…I feel that too. When I saw you…my heart started racing and it was like I was seeing you after a really long time," He blushed as she cocked her head, staring into her eyes._

_"I have to go," She whispered, she half-turned to go yet turning stayed, smiling cheekily at him._

_"You know what that means don't you?" She asked, he shook his head dumbly._

_"Duh Tristan…you're falling in love with me!" She said with a giggle as she leaned into him slowly, kissing his cheek and slipping him a piece of paper._

_She flipped her hair behind her ears and smiled brightly before she walked away. He watched her retreating back as he opened the piece of paper._

Lorelai Leigh Gilmore – call me

_She'd scrawled her cell number. He crumpled the piece of paper and smiled in the beautiful silence, feeling, for the first time in a year tha his eyes were finally open._

* * *

Rory cracked one blue open and groaned. She was sprawled across her bed, her head off the mattress and a towel below her. She reached a hand up to run through her hair; it was damp, sweaty…_what happened last night?_ All that she could remember during the first traverse of her fractured memories was black and flashing lights. 

The door to her bedroom wheezed open and she looked up from the bed to see a bedraggled Steph outlined in the doorway, proffering a mug of coffee.

"Hey," Rory said croakily.

"Hey…coffee"

It wasn't a question; it was never a question with Rory. With another groan she weekly hoisted herself up in the bed and took the mug gratefully.

"So," Steph began, "good night"

"Mmm…I don't remember much"

Steph laughed softly.

"Neither would I if my boyfriend had poured me into a cab at 4a.m. while I was singing _Spice up your Life_"

Rory rolled her dry eyes and reached over into her drawers for eye-drops.

"Oh God,"

"Don't worry, nobody will remember it"

---

Later Rory strode purposefully from the library towards her next class, a small smile on her face from the phone call she'd just had.

She had a boyfriend…well, a boyfriend of sorts. He spent more time with her than any of those other girls, and she loved him. When she was a little girl she'd wanted that fairy-tale kind of love, that spinning out of control, held to the world only in theory kind of love. The kind of love that would lead her to do stupid, mindless things. Yet somewhere along the road she'd realised that girls who fell in love like that, who burned the brightest were doomed to be snuffed out. She settled instead for comfort and friendship and she was happy with that choice.

So why, a few months ago, had she given her number to that friend of her brother's? To Tristan? And why, every so often, at the strangest times, had his face popped into her mind's eye? Why hadn't he called her?

When she looked up she saw Jay across the quad and waved, opening her mouth to call out but then she saw _him_, and any cry died on her lips. Instead she pulled her books closer to her chest and hurried to her class.

---

Jay had to nudge Tristan twice to wake him up at the end of the lecture. Groggily the blond stared in confusion at his friend.

"Burning the candle at both ends huh Buddy?" Jay asked with a laugh.

Tristan groaned and reached for his book bag. This class was the only one the two shared this semester. They walked slowly out of the lecture together.

"Coffee?" Jay asked.

"Sure," Tristan replied, a little perkier for the sunshine beating down on him.

Jay led the way to a small, dingy, underground coffee-shop the two had frequented when they first started at Yale.

Tristan looked over at his friend secretly. He didn't look much like his sister…like Lorelai. The name, even formed only in his mind, burned. It had been months since he had met her. Months since he had made a complete dick of himself on that balcony. Months since that hadn't bothered her and she'd slipped him her phone number.

Of course the number had been lost by now, gone to wherever it was those small mementos – the scraps of paper, the ticket stubs from concerts and dog-eared photographs – went to. That wasn't why he'd never called her though.

He'd wanted to, God he'd wanted to. He'd thought it was going to drive him crazy as he walked home that night, feeling the piece of paper in his pocket with every step he took. And he'd planned on it, the next week, early on, a coffee date perhaps, maybe lunch.

That was, of course, before he'd seen her. He'd known her from miles off, as though he'd always known her, as though she were Liz, or someone else he'd known that way for years. The smile had spread involuntarily across his face and unconsciously he'd sped up to reach her faster.

Then he'd seen, he'd never understand, but he had seen. A guy, so familiar that it was almost painful, tall, blond, a cocky grin in place and their fingers entwined as he led her surely across the courtyard. She had looked up at her boyfriend, her lover, and smiled; smiled like she did the night she'd met him.

And so he'd stomped on whatever feelings this girl had stirred up in him and allowed himself to lose that piece of paper.

---

_**AN:** So there it is, please remember to R&R my inbox is so empty!_


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